


That Time Glen Talbot Thought He Could Outwit Fate

by Persiflage



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cosmic Tides, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fated Reunion, Less Romeo and Juliet More Antony and Cleopatra, Older Man/Younger Woman, Oral Sex, POV Alternating, POV Phil Coulson, POV Skye | Daisy Johnson, Porn With Plot, Post-Season/Series 03, Romance, Skye | Daisy Johnson's Superpowers, Star-crossed, TAHITI Protocol, Wall Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2016-06-01
Packaged: 2018-07-11 08:38:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7041130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Persiflage/pseuds/Persiflage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A post-S3 canon divergence that sees Phil and Daisy torn apart - but not for long - because no one can outwit Fate, certainly not Brigadier General Glen Talbot!</p>
            </blockquote>





	That Time Glen Talbot Thought He Could Outwit Fate

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Pippypaleopath](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pippypaleopath/gifts).



> This wasn't my idea - that responsibility belongs to i-deduce-skeletons on Tumblr, who dangled the idea in front of me until I agreed to write it. (Let's face it, though, I'm a sucker for AUs, so very little dangling was actually required!)

President Ellis listened intently to Talbot's presentation, liking the idea more and more – if he approved it then it would get rid of two birds with one stone: deal with this rogue 'Inhuman' called Quake, and also deal with the Director of SHIELD, who was well known as an Inhuman Rights advocate by now.

"Very well," he said, once Talbot finished speaking. He took the file of paperwork from the man and flipped it open to scrawl his signature across the authorisation forms. "Do it."

"Yes sir. Thank you sir." Talbot threw the President a salute, then strode out of the office, not waiting for his aide to catch him up, although she did.

"Were you successful, sir?" she asked as they stepped into the elevator.

"I was," he told her with considerable satisfaction. "The President seemed to think it an excellent strategy for dealing with the pair of them."

"Yes sir." 

The young woman's tone was a bit wooden, he noticed, and he frowned. "You don't approve Lieutenant Jones?"

"Well, sir, it's a bit drastic, isn't it? Forcing a cure on the young woman, and then forcibly adjusting their memories of their lives with SHIELD."

His frown deepened. "You would prefer me to arrange for them to be put out of action permanently?" he asked sarcastically. 

"No sir," the young Lieutenant said swiftly.

"There's no other way to contain them," Talbot told her. "For goodness sakes, she can tear continents in two, and he's dangerously idealistic about these Inhumans. This is the only way to stop them, short of death, since I know she'd find a way to break them out if we imprisoned them."

"Yes sir."

"And this way we can absorb SHIELD, what's left of it, into the ATCU – which has proper oversight and chains of command, and will do whatever they're told."

"Yes sir."

He waited while she opened the rear passenger door of his car, then climbed inside. He continued to frown as she got into the driver's seat, wondering if Lieutenant Jones was secretly an Inhuman sympathiser.

Once back in his office, Talbot ordered his teams into action – capturing Quake would be nigh impossible, so he sent a team to capture the Director of SHIELD instead, certain that where Phil Coulson went, Quake would eventually follow. He knew that Coulson was sentimental about the girl, and was fairly certain she was equally sentimental about him.

While the team was en route to Coulson's last known location, Talbot ensured the two science teams were ready to do their part – it was important that everything was done swiftly, before any of the other SHIELD agents knew what was happening.

DJ-PC-DJ-PC-DJ

**Six Months Later**

"Is this seat taken?" 

Phil Coulson looked up from the journal he was reading while drinking a beer and found himself smiling at the young woman who'd spoken to him. "Not yet," he said, giving her a charming smile, "but it will be if you sit down."

She chuckled, and he took a moment to appreciate the picture she presented: late 20s; dark eyes and a slightly darker complexion that hinted that she was of mixed race; a messy bob of dark hair just touching her shoulders; a black tank top that showed off those same shoulders, which were impressively muscled; and a short denim skirt that barely skimmed her knees. He smiled involuntarily at the hefty boots she wore, somehow amused that they weren't high-heeled shoes.

"Daisy," she said, and offered him her hand.

"Phil," he told her, and signalled to the bartender, who hurried over with such speed that Phil had to assume he'd spotted how gorgeous Phil's new acquaintance was. 

Once they both had a drink in front of them, and a bowl of pretzels to accompany their beers, Phil turned his attention back to his journal, not wanting her to feel like he was hitting on her, even though he'd happily have talked to her.

"Can I be nosy?" she asked a few minutes later, leaning into his personal space a bit.

"Sure."

"What are you reading? Looks kinda intense."

"It's a History journal," he said, not minding the interruption for once. "I teach History."

"Cool. What's your era?"

"World War 2."

She nodded. "Is it rewarding?"

"Mostly. There are always at least a couple of kids in any class who are hard to keep under control, but the majority grow genuinely interested."

She nodded again, her mouth full of pretzel. 

"Can I be nosy?" he asked as she swallowed.

She chuckled again. "Sure," she said, mimicking his tone and his accent.

He smirked. "What do you do?"

"Cyber Security. I'm here from Beijing for a conference," she said, and smirked in turn when she spotted his obvious surprise. "Yeah, I look nothing like a computer geek, I know."

"No, you don't – you're way too attractive," he told her, then blushed scarlet from the tips of his ears down.

"Easy there, Charm School," she said in a teasing tone, her eyes bright with amusement.

"Sorry," he muttered, "that was – "

"Very sweet," she said, cutting off his lame apology. 

He was sure he was blushing even harder, and he was very aware that his jeans had grown embarrassingly tight, a predicament that didn't improve as they continued to talk and flirt for the next couple of hours.

"Hey, I've been at this conference all day and I've had very little to eat – you want to grab something with me?" Daisy asked just as Phil was thinking he should head home.

"I'd love to," he said sincerely.

"Great. My hotel's nearby."

"Why don't you come back to my apartment?" he suggested, slightly diffidently. "It's just a couple of blocks over – I'll treat you to some home cooking, if you'd like."

"I would like," she said immediately, and slid off her stool.

Phil got down from his stool and hoped that his jeans would hide the tell-tale bulge of his rather embarrassing erection.

Twenty minutes later he unlocked the door to his apartment, then gestured for her to precede him, and she stepped inside with a murmur of thanks. He followed her, turned to lock the door, then as he turned back around he found himself being pressed up against the door, Daisy's mouth hovering over his.

"Phil." 

Funny, he thought, how you could pack so much meaning into just four letters of someone's name.

"Daisy," he breathed, and then her mouth was on his, and they were kissing passionately, hungrily, biting at each other's lips, their tongues sliding frantically together. 

He gasped in shock when she insinuated her hand into his jeans and curled her fingers around his hot, hard cock. She stroked him a few times, then guided his hand between her legs, and he slipped it beneath her skirt to find she wasn't wearing any panties, and when his fingers dipped lower, he discovered she was already wet.

"Fuck, Daisy," he groaned.

"Yeah, Phil," she agreed. 

Somehow they managed to get his jeans and her skirt unfastened and off, leaving both items on the floor. Phil moaned with pleasure when Daisy guided his cock to her sex.

"Wait!" he gasped, just as she was about to plunge him inside. "Condom."

She lifted an eyebrow, then said, "Where?"

"Jeans."

She scooped his jeans up from the floor and held them out, and he quickly extracted his wallet from his back pocket, then took a condom from inside it.

"Do you always carry a condom in your wallet, Phil?" Daisy asked, and he might have been embarrassed by the implications if it wasn't for the fact that she sounded as if she found the idea sexy rather than opportunistic.

"Not always," he admitted. 

"Glad you had it this time," she told him, and rolled it down his swollen shaft, before guiding his cock into her slick sex.

They both groaned loudly as he slid into her, and he grabbed her, picking her up and turning them around so that her back was against the door.

"Yeah, Phil," she said, already breathless, as she wrapped her legs around him. 

He pushed deeper into her, and she bit down on his bottom lip, making him gasp and moan, before he snapped his hips forward and began to fuck her hard and fast against the door. Neither one of them lasted long, and he was relieved that Daisy came first, and then a second time as his orgasm hit.

They remained pressed against the door for a few minutes, both of them waiting for their heart rate to settle and their breathing to even out a bit before he lowered her down to the floor, his spent cock slipping from her.

"So that was pretty intense fucking for a first time," she observed as she picked up her skirt and pulled it back on.

"Yeah," he agreed, feeling a bit dazed by the intensity.

"Good intense, though," she said, as if she felt she should clarify the point.

"Oh yeah." He smirked at her as he pulled on his jeans, having slipped off the condom and dropped it into the waste basket near the sofa.

She grabbed his hand, entwining their fingers together, and he smiled, then said, "So what do you want to eat?"

"Ben and Jerry's," she said, startling him into laughter.

"I believe I have some," he said, "but before that?"

She gave a little shrug. "I don't mind – I'm sure I'll enjoy whatever you feel like giving me. I have so far."

His eyes widened and his cheeks heated up at her words. "Fuck, Daisy, you're incorrigible."

She chuckled, clearly amused that she'd flustered him, then she dropped his hand to move into the centre of his kitchen, which they'd just entered. He tried not to mind that she was no longer holding his hand, although he missed the warmth of her skin against his.

He realised, with even more embarrassment, that she was staring at the framed photo of Captain America that he had hung on the wall within his breakfast nook.

"You're a fan of Cap," she said, smiling widely, and his embarrassment evaporated as he realised that she was too.

"Uh, yeah." Hardly the most eloquent response, he knew, but he was a bit startled by the sudden realisation that he felt as if he'd known Daisy for years, not just a few hours.

"You have excellent taste, Mr Coulson," she said, her ridiculously formal tone at odds with her casual clothes, and the fact that she had a freshly fucked glow about her.

"Thank you, Miss Johnson," he said in an equally formal tone, then smirked.

"So, Phil, what're you gonna feed me?"

"How about baked eggs in popped beans? Takes about 20 minutes to produce. Eggs, tomatoes, cannelloni beans, and ricotta cheese spread on wholemeal toast." He smirked at her wide eyed stare. "You're not allergic to anything?"

"Uh-uh," she said, shaking her head. "That sounds good."

"Okay. Do you want a drink?"

"Can I have some water?"

"Sure." He pulled open the refrigerator door and fished out a bottle of water, which he passed to her, before pulling out a couple of eggs, a lemon, some ricotta cheese, and a punnet of ripe cherry tomatoes.

He then opened his cupboard and pulled out extra virgin olive oil and a can of cannelloni beans, setting them on the counter beside the other things, before he grabbed a loaf of seeded wholemeal bread. Then he reached over and broke a few sprigs of fresh basil from the pots of herbs along the window ledge.

"Phil?" 

He turned around to find Daisy was perched on one of the stools from the breakfast nook, an amused look in her eyes.

"Daisy?"

"Admit it, you're a bit of a foodie, aren't you?"

"Do you mind?" he asked. "After all, you're a self-confessed computer geek."

She laughed, and he found himself smiling at her – her laughter was free and easy, and it made him wish he could hear her laugh often.

"No, I don't mind," she reassured him, then beckoned him towards her. When he stepped close, she slid her arm around his neck and kissed him, slow and deep, making him want her all over again. 

"It's kinda sexy, you being a foodie. In fact, you're a pretty sexy guy, Phil. And very cool."

"Cool?" he scoffed. "I'm 52 years old and – "

"Shut up, Phil," she said, her tone very stern, and he bit back a moan – she absolutely didn't need to know that he had a thing for bossy women. The glint in her eye, however, as she gazed at him made him think she'd already figured it out.

"It doesn't matter how old you are," she said, her tone more serious now. "You don't have to be young to be cool." She set the bottle of water aside, and clasped both his hips, tugging him closer as she spread her legs so that he ended up between them. 

"Listen to me, Mr Phil Coulson. I don't make a habit of fucking guys I barely know – I know you might think otherwise, given the way I look – " He shook his head adamantly, and her expression softened a bit in response. "This is the first time I've ever had sex with a guy who I've known less than half a day."

"Why did you?" he asked curiously.

She gave a little shrug. "I felt – feel – as if I've known you a lot longer than three hours," she said, and he couldn't help sighing a little, which made her lift her eyebrows at him.

"I feel the same," he told her, aware he was sounding a bit too earnest. "I haven't even been in a relationship with anyone for nearly four years."

She smirked. "And yet there was a condom in your wallet."

He frowned a bit. "Yeah. I – uh – I don't know what impulse made me buy those this morning."

"Well, whatever the impulse was, I'm glad of it." She slid her hands from his hips to cup his ass, pressing his body more tightly against hers. "So, Mr Sexy and Cool, are you going to feed me before I have my wicked way with you?"

He laughed. "I think I'd better," he told her in a serious tone. "You're going to need plenty of energy."

"Bad man," she muttered, and kissed him, hard and fast; he groaned into the kiss as he felt her hand slip back into his jeans and curl around his semi-erect cock.

"Phil." She kissed him still more deeply. "I'm so wet for you."

He groaned again, then pulled back a bit to say, "I really want you, Daisy."

"Yeah, Phil. I want you too, but I am really hungry." 

He chuckled, then nipped at her bottom lip briefly, before pulling away from her. "Better let me get this meal ready, then."

She sighed. "Yeah, okay."

"Want to help?" he asked, then smiled when her face lit up in obvious pleasure.

"Love to."

"C'mon then." He grabbed her hand and tugged her across to the counter, and between the two of them, they got the meal ready in a bit less than the twenty minutes it usually took.

After they'd finished eating the first course, he fetched his tub of Ben & Jerry's, two spoons, and two bowls, and they followed their healthy main course with a totally decadent second course featuring chocolate ice cream, and a fair bit of ice-cream flavoured making out.

Once they'd both eaten, Daisy declined coffee, but helped him to load up the dishwasher, before he led her through the apartment to his bedroom.

He let her strip him out of his clothes, then he had to explain the huge scar on his chest, as well as his prosthetic left hand; he briefly told her about the automobile accident he'd been involved in a few years ago which had left him scarred and damaged, but alive. 

"To be honest, I don't remember much about it," he told her as she sat cross-legged beside him, the fingers of her right hand lightly trailing down the scar. "I was unconscious for weeks afterwards, and then they had me on such strong painkillers that those three months are mostly a big blur of pain."

She gently pressed her hand against his heart, then leaned in and kissed him softly. "I'm just glad you survived," she told him.

"Me too," he said. "Especially now."

She quirked her eyebrows. "Why?"

"Because now I've met you," he said, thinking that perhaps he was being too corny, but she smiled, looking pleased.

"Yeah. You know, I'm not really one for Fate or Destiny, or whatever, but it does kinda feel like Fate, us meeting tonight."

He nodded eagerly. "Yes." 

She climbed onto his lap, and he moaned softly at the heat between her thighs pressing against his erection. "Our first time was really good," she said, dropping soft kisses along his jaw as she spoke, "but this time I kinda want to take it slow, if that's okay." She nipped at his earlobe, and he gasped.

"Yes. Daisy." He couldn't help groaning her name when she scraped her teeth over his ear. "Fuck!"

She leaned back, smirking at him. "Sensitive ears, huh?"

"Yes," he hissed, and she chuckled. 

"Duly noted, Phil."

"Condoms are in the drawer," he told her, nodding at the nightstand, and she leaned over and tugged the drawer open, then pulled out the pack. He watched through half-lidded eyes as she extracted a foil packet, then tore it open, before rolling the latex down his cock; he liked the look of intense concentration in her eyes.

She tossed the empty foil packet onto the nightstand, then lifted herself up and guided him into her wet heat. She rocked her hips unhurriedly back and forth, building sensation slowly, and peppering his face with butterfly kisses, and Phil stroked his hands up and down her spine repeatedly, savouring the long, steady build of arousal and pressure until he was ready to pop. He reached down between their bodies and thumbed Daisy's clit, sending her over the edge with a loud cry of his name, and then his hips were bucking beneath her as her orgasm set off his own.

After a shared shower which featured a lot of touching and stroking, but no actual sex, because they both needed a bit of time to recover – Daisy somewhat bashfully told him that she'd never fucked anyone with a cock as big as his before, which had been a major ego boost, he readily admitted – they settled into his bed, and talked some more about their lives and careers. 

Phil was saddened to learn that Daisy had been orphaned as a baby, and had grown up in the foster system, and although he could tell she was making light of her experiences, he also could tell that she'd had a rough ride, being bounced back and forth between various foster homes and the Catholic orphanage where she'd been left as a one-year old.

"How did you end up in China?" Phil asked.

"When I was 23, I decided I wanted to know more about my mom's cultural background," she told him. "And by then, through my freelance work, I'd saved up enough to go there for an extended stay. Which got extended to three years after I was offered work as – " She stopped, cutting herself off, and he gave her a curious look.

"As? I'm not going to judge you, Daisy," he added when she still hesitated.

"A hacktivist," she said, and at his blank look, she explained about hackers who are also activists.

He listened with increasing amazement as she outlined the work of the organisation called The Rising Tide, for whom she worked.

"It's incredibly courageous of you," he told her. "Doing that kind of work in China, undermining the Chinese government – and incredibly dangerous."

She gave him an apologetic shrug. "It's something I feel strongly about."

"I can tell," he said. "I admire you."

"Yeah?" She sounded flattered, he thought, and he figured that she probably hadn't had a great deal of praise come her way.

"Yeah," he agreed, and leaned in to kiss her, soft and slow, until they were both trembling with desire. 

"Phil," she moaned, her nails scraping across his scalp as she failed to get a proper grip on his short hair.

"Can I eat you out?" he asked, suddenly seized by the idea.

"Fuck. Yes."

He kissed a path down her body, mapping the different parts with his tongue, and occasionally a brief scrape of his teeth. By the time he reached her mound, she was writhing beneath him, and he took a moment to enjoy the sight of his young lover, flushed and aroused, with a light sheen of sweat on her skin. Then he lowered his head, pressing nipping kisses to each of her inner thighs, before he slid his tongue into her sopping cunt.

She cried out, then wrapped her legs around his neck, and he concentrated on fucking her with his tongue, getting her off twice. She came hard both times, flooding his tongue with her juices, which he swallowed down eagerly.

Once she'd finished shuddering and gasping, he moved up her body and kissed her; she groaned quietly, and he was about to open his mouth to apologise for the taste, but she grabbed the back of his neck and pulled him in for another kiss. It was his turn to groan as she reached down and curled her hand around his cock, which lay hard and tight against his belly, his pre-cum smearing across his skin.

"I wanna taste you now, Phil," Daisy told, sliding her hand down to cup his balls.

"Yes," he said eagerly, then groaned when she bit on his chin before shifting down the bed to settle next to his hips. She leaned over and lifted his cock to her mouth, taking a moment to blow a stream of air over the tip, which had his hips bucking upwards desperately, before she eased the head into her mouth, then swirled her tongue around it.

"Fuck, Daisy," he gasped. "Not gonna last."

She released his cock with a sucking pop and smirked up at him. "Don't worry, Phil, I'll make it good for you."

"Yes," he hissed.

She slid his cock back into her mouth, and he could only lie there and try to keep still, his hands clutching the bedding as she sucked, stroked, licked, and occasionally grazed her teeth over his flesh. The final straw, though, was when she cupped his balls in her free hand and rubbed a fingertip around his anus. He had no time to warn her, because the act rendered him momentarily speechless, before he was pumping his cum down her throat. She didn't stop sucking, however, or stroking his asshole, until his dick was limp and his balls drained dry.

She crawled back up the bed and snuggled in at his side, her head on his right shoulder, and the palm of her right hand resting over his scar and heart.

"Thank you," he said, his voice as hoarse as if he'd been screaming.

"Right back at you," she said, smiling at him. She pressed a kiss to his cheek. "I reckon I could sleep for a week after that."

He chuckled weakly. "Yeah." He wrapped his arm around her body, holding her close, and he quickly fell asleep.

DJ-PC-DJ-PC-DJ

Daisy had booked a week of vacation following the conference, and she spent it with Phil. At his suggestion she moved out of her hotel room and into his apartment, and they had a thoroughly debauched time, although they didn't spend all their time fucking – he took her sightseeing around New York and he also spent time cooking for or with her. It was, Daisy decided, the best week of her life: she certainly couldn't remember ever being happier, and as the week progressed she began to resent the fact that she was flying home on Sunday.

"Leaving you is going to be the hardest thing I've ever had to do," she told him on Saturday night as he slid his cock into her after going down on her and getting her off twice.

"I wish you didn't have to," he told her, leaning down to kiss her as he withdrew again.

"I'm going to come back," she said, then grunted as he thrust harder into her.

He paused and looked down at her, his eyes wide. "Really?"

She nodded adamantly, then squeezed her muscles around his cock, trying to encourage him to resume fucking her. "Yeah. I'm still an American citizen, you know, so I can apply for jobs here. Or I might see if the Rising Tide has an American chapter."

She groaned as he grabbed her wrists and lifted her arms above her head, pressing them down onto the pillow as he thrust deeper into her. She liked the way she felt safe with him when he pinned her to the bed in this way – and she liked it even more when he seemed to be trying to fuck her through the mattress.

She began to egg him on, tightening her muscles around his cock, biting at his earlobe, and verbally encouraging him.

"C'mon Phil," she muttered in his ear, licking at the shell. "Give me your best shot." 

It was his turn to groan now, as he pumped his hips faster, and she savoured the sensation of him spilling into her as he abruptly came very hard, triggering her own orgasm.

"Shit," he gasped, and she pulled his body down onto hers, stroking his back and shoulders as he came down.

She nuzzled his neck, kissed him tenderly, then rolled them over so she was on top, wanting to rest her head on his scar.

"I'm going to install a new app on your phone," she told him once he'd recovered.

"Oh?"

She nodded. "It's double encrypted for private IM chats."

"Double encrypted?" he asked, and she could see him wondering if she was being paranoid.

"Hey, living in the land of Communism, remember?" she reminded him. "Besides, do you want one of your kids to pick up your phone and find out you've been sexting me?" 

His appalled expression told her that he definitely didn't want that. Then his expression cleared and he smirked at her. "You're going to sext me?" 

She rolled her eyes. "Like you weren't already planning to," she teased, and he lifted his head, his mouth chasing hers.

"How soon do you think you might come back?"

She shook her head. "I don't know – I hope to be back within a year, though."

His face, always expressive, told her that he wasn't happy at this prospect of that long an absence, but neither was she. "I've already put some feelers out," she confessed, and his eyes widened.

"Really?" She nodded, and he looked ridiculously touched. "I don't know what to say."

"There's no need to say anything, Phil," she said. "I want to be with you."

DJ-PC-DJ-PC-DJ

The dreams started two days after Daisy got back to Beijing; if she'd thought about it, she'd have expected to dream of Phil after such an intense week together, but she wouldn't have expected the dreams that she started having. At first they were fragmentary things – she seemed to be some kind of government agent, spying on people, or something, but then they became more detailed, and lengthier, and she found herself dreaming that she was some sort of badass field agent, with combat skills, and firearms skills. Then, about three weeks after the dreams began, she found herself dreaming that she was some sort of superhero who could cause earthquakes.

The weirdest thing was that Phil was in her dreams, but he wasn't a history teacher – he was her boss/team leader, and in charge of the group of agents to which she belonged. She and Phil discussed the dreams, a discussion which intensified when he revealed he was having similar dreams about him and Daisy working for a government organisation.

_Any idea which one?_ she asked during one of their IM conversations.

_No – no one ever seems to mention the name. But I did get a glimpse of a logo on a wall._

_Tell me?_

_It was a sort of stylised eagle inside two circles, with the word 'Reserve' between the tail and the outstretched right wing of the eagle as I faced it. That was all I could see through an open doorway. The logo was on the wall of a hallway outside the room I was in._

_Okay. That's something for me to go on, at least. Enjoy the rest of your lunch hour._

_Don't stay up too late working on this. And sleep well when you go to bed. xx_

_Love you, Phil. xx_

_Love you too._

While Phil went back to his ham and ricotta panini, Daisy began the painstaking process of trying to search for a logo she hadn't seen and couldn't completely describe. She didn't expect to find it immediately – not with so little information to go on, but it still took her longer than she'd hoped, even with her conviction that it was the logo for a government organisation.

Six days after Phil described the logo, she finally managed to find it – and what she found both amazed and worried her: the organisation originally known as the SSR – the Strategic Scientific Reserve – had been founded just after WW2, and had eventually become SHIELD – the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division, a super secret organisation that was created to protect the world from 'the much weirder world', as she recounted to Phil in a Skype conversation on Sunday. It was mid-morning in New York, and evening in Beijing, when she called him to let him know what she'd found.

"SHIELD?" he asked. "Fuck."

"Yeah, that was kinda my reaction too," she agreed. "Why would we both be dreaming of working for SHIELD? You were my boss in nearly all the dreams."

"Nearly all?" he asked immediately, his face full of curiosity.

"Yeah. Last night – " She paused, and swallowed a mouthful of water from the bottle beside her. "Last night I dreamt that I was – I don't know, on the run? Working solo, at any rate, and you were trying to find me. It was – well, pretty intense. You had this look about you – like you were desperate – too thin, as if you weren't eating enough, and unshaven, and you were exhausted too. I didn't like it."

"I'm sorry," he said, which on some level amused Daisy, because he wasn't responsible for how his dream self appeared, although she was beginning to suspect these were more than dreams."

"Phil?"

"Yes Daisy?"

"What if these aren't dreams at all? What if they're memories? What if we did work for SHIELD, and they found some way to suppress our memories?"

"I considered that," he told her, and she could tell he was relieved she'd been wondering the same thing. "But how would they suppress our memories?"

"To be honest, I'm more worried about why," she told him. "What happened that they decided to cover up our identities and past lives, and why am I in Beijing while you're in New York?"

He dropped his gaze. "Maybe we had an affair?"

"C'mon, Phil. Even super secret spy organisations like SHIELD don't punish their employees for having an affair by changing their memories and splitting them up."

"Why do you think they did it, then?" he asked. "You've got a theory, haven't you?"

She nodded. "Yeah, Phil, I've got a theory. This is probably going to sound egotistical, but I think I was a superhero. I think I was Quake."

"Quake?" he asked, clearly startled. "She's the young woman none of the press could ever identify."

"Exactly," Daisy said. "And I dreamt – if it was just a dream, which I seriously doubt by this point – that I had earthquake powers. If I went rogue, mightn't they have decided that I was too dangerous to be allowed to run around on my own?"

"Okay, that does make sense." He looked thoughtful. "But why change my memories?"

"Well, if my dream last night's anything to judge by, you were on my side – perhaps they didn't want a SHIELD boss who was supporting a rogue superhero, and perhaps they couldn't persuade you to give me up?"

He nodded. "I wouldn't," he said.

She chuckled softly. "Yeah, Phil, I know that already."

"So what are we going to do?"

"I'm coming over," she told him, and saw the way his face lit up at the prospect. "We need to dig into this more deeply, and I can't do that properly from a time zone that's 12 hours out of sync with the people I want to talk to."

"Who are you planning on talking to?" he asked immediately.

"There's an Army guy – Brigadier General Glenn Talbot. Currently, he's head of the ATCU, the Advanced Threat Containment Unit, into which, so far as I've been able to discover, SHIELD was absorbed a few months ago."

"If what you think happened is what happened, do you really think the head of the ATCU would agree to see you?"

"Do you really think I'd go through official channels to see him, Phil?" she asked lightly.

He snorted. "No, I really don't."

"So I'll make sure he will see me by not telling him that he's going to be seeing me. And you should come. If our theories are right, they did this to both of us."

He nodded. "When are you flying in?"

"Tuesday. I want to take at least a couple of days to figure out a precise strategy for getting in to see Talbot, which involves taking a look at his office and his home, and any other buildings he might regularly visit, so I can figure out where it's going to be safest for us to approach him."

"Makes sense," Phil said. "Give me your flight details, and I'll be at the airport to meet you."

"Thanks." She told him the information, a warm feeling filling her belly – not just from the pleasure of seeing him again, but also the fact that they were going to work together, something they'd apparently done often in the past if her theory was right.

DJ-PC-DJ-PC-DJ

Daisy saw Phil before he spotted her, so she got to watch with impunity as his face lit up with pleasure at the sight of her when she caught his eye. She was a bit embarrassed to realise that she wanted to jump his bones right there and then, but once she got closer, she could see that he was feeling much the same, judging by the telltale bulge in his pants.

They hugged tightly, and then his mouth was on hers, hot, hungry and pretty desperate. 

"Phil," she groaned quietly when his hands found her ass and cupped it, pressing her body even more tightly against his.

"Daisy," he grunted.

"Can we get out of here?" she asked urgently.

"I think we probably should before we get arrested for public indecency."

She chuckled. "Dork," she said in a teasing tone. 

They collected her bag from the baggage claim, and Phil insisted on carrying it out to the cab rank, while Daisy made do with her messenger bag, which contained her laptop and the rest of her carry-on luggage.

"Have you eaten, yet?" he asked as the cab driver took them surprisingly swiftly across town. 

She shook her head. "Nope."

"I thought we could have lunch first, then strategise, if that’s okay."

"Very okay," she assured him.

"Good."

Once inside Phil's apartment, Daisy decided to shower and change, while Phil concentrated on making them some lunch.

"How does grilled cheese sandwiches with potato chips sound?" he asked, leaning against the door frame and watching appreciatively as she stripped off her clothes in his bedroom.

"Like a lifestyle choice I can get behind," she said, smirking as he ostentatiously adjusted his cock in his pants. "Carry on like that, and I'll have to have my wicked way with you." She nodded at his hand.

He gave her a cocky grin, then repeated the gesture, and Daisy growled at him, then reached over to grab his hand, pulling him closer.

Moments later his pants were around his ankles, and she was rubbing the head of his cock up and down her wet slit.

"Fuck!" he groaned, and his hips snapped forward, Daisy guiding his cock into her tight, wet heat.

"Yeah, Phil," she muttered, then nipped at his earlobe. That was all the encouragement he needed to start fucking her hard and fast against the wall, and she was amused that this was the same way in which they'd fucked for the very first time, just in a different room of his apartment.

She came hard, biting at his collarbone as she climaxed around his cock, and then he was spilling his seed into her throbbing pussy.

"God, Daisy, I've missed you," he said softly when they'd finally recovered enough breath to speak, and to pull apart from each other.

She chuckled softly. "Missed you too." She gave him a quite tender kiss, then asked, "Are you going to join me in the shower?"

"Better not," he said, grimacing. "I'll just slow you down because I won't be able to keep my hands off you."

She smirked. "All right. I'll be as quick as I can."

He nodded, and she leaned in to give him a quick peck on the cheek, before she opened her bag for a change of clothes and her toiletries.

DJ-PC-DJ-PC-DJ

They spent the afternoon hunched over their laptops as Daisy researched where Talbot worked, lived, and spent his spare time, while she had Phil going through the details of Talbot's staff, hoping that they could find someone they could persuade to help them.

"I've got something," Phil said about four hours after they started.

Daisy straightened up, grunted at the ache in her back, and stretched. Phil reached over and pressed his hand to the middle of her back, then began rubbing it, easing her muscles.

"Oh man," she groaned. "Your hands. Phil, why haven't you ever given me a massage?"

He chuckled. "To be fair, there was hardly time – we only spent a week together, remember?"

"Yeah." She sighed, then turned towards him. "Tell me?" She gestured at his laptop screen.

"There's a young woman, one of Talbot's staffers – one of his pool of drivers in fact – a Lieutenant Jones. At her last appraisal a year ago, Talbot made a note that she seemed to be an Inhuman sympathiser."

"Oh, that's good. We may be able to use that," Daisy said eagerly. "Scoot."

He scooted his chair sideways a bit, and Daisy pulled his laptop towards her, beginning to look deeper into Lieutenant Jones' data. She was only vaguely aware of Phil moving away from the table where they were working, most of her concentration focused on the hacking that she was doing.

When she sat back half an hour later, there was a small box of jelly doughnuts on the table, and Phil was carrying a couple of mugs of coffee over from the counter where his coffeemaker sat.

"Life saver," she breathed, taking the mugs from him and setting them down, before sliding her hand up his forearm and pulling him towards her. He ducked his head, clearly anticipating her desire to kiss him thoroughly, and it occurred to her – not for the first time – that they were amazingly in sync with each other.

"C'mere," she said, and tugged him to sit on her lap, making him laugh. He wrapped his arms around her neck as she wrapped hers securely around his torso. 

"I'd say Lieutenant Clara Jones is exactly who we need to pull this off," she told Phil, and he looked at the screen. "26 years old, been working for Talbot for the past 4 years. Had a younger sister named Sarah, who was an Inhuman and was killed by a group calling themselves the Watchdogs."

"Watchdogs," Phil scoffed.

"Yeah, I know – it's a stupid name. But these are far from stupid people. They're a hate group – specifically an anti-Inhuman hate group. From what I can establish, and I'm going to need to dig deeper to find out more, this group sprang up about 18 months ago, in the wake of a spate of newly transformed Inhumans causing all sorts of chaos and damage."

"What _are_ Inhumans?" asked Phil.

"They're humans that have been genetically modified with alien DNA, which then gives them various 'superpowers' once they've been through a process called Terrigenesis."

"You found that in Lieutenant Jones' file?" he asked, sounding surprised.

"Nope. I found it in a top secret file of Talbot's. I told you that the ATCU has taken over SHIELD, which was originally the SSR. I found some SHIELD records in Talbot's files – they're all heavily encrypted, but the one I've managed to decrypt is an account of the origins of Inhumans. I haven't read it all yet, but it explained about Terrigenesis."

"So what happened with the new Inhumans?" asked Phil.

"SHIELD was trying to bring them within the organisation, to keep them safe until they could master their powers – but the ATCU, which was a separate organisation at the time led by a woman called Rosalind Price, kept getting to them first." 

She had to stop and take a few deep breaths before she could continue, and he shifted off her lap, back into his chair, then leaned in and embraced her. "You okay?" he asked softly, his expression concerned.

She nodded. "The ATCU was capturing the Inhumans and putting them in stasis – suspended animation, basically, supposedly until someone could come up with a cure for the transformation."

"Let me guess, the ATCU wasn't bothering to get permission from the new Inhumans to do this?"

"Not so far as SHIELD were aware, no." She shook her head. "That's just such a gross violation of people's rights."

He kissed her, briefly, yet tenderly, then pulled back to look her in the eye. "We don't have to do this now, you know. Not all at once, anyway."

"Yeah." She put her arms around his neck and kissed him back, not so briefly or tenderly. "Doughnut break," she told him, and he chuckled as she picked up her coffee and took a deep swallow.

"Yeah, a sugar high may well help."

She poked her tongue out at him, and he smirked. "I can think of better uses for your tongue," he said, his expression sly.

"Oh yes?"

"Mmhmm." He rubbed his crotch suggestively, his expression lewd and leering, which made Daisy laugh, which she suspected was his intention.

She finished her coffee, then ate a doughnut as suggestively as she could, her eyes fixed on Phil's face, which was a picture. Once she'd swallowed the last of it, he grabbed her shoulders, leaned in, and kissed her hungrily. She reached down and unfastened his jeans, drawing a moan from him as she slipped her hand inside to curl around his hot, hard flesh.

"Daisy," he gasped, pulling his mouth from hers when she squeezed his cock. "Daisy. Daisy."

She smirked a bit – she would happily admit to enjoying it when he got into this state – his mouth stuck in a loop of repeating her name over and over. She tugged him up to his feet, and eased his jeans and boxers down, being careful about his erection, then sat him down again before kneeling in front of his chair. He moaned and spread his legs, and she slid her hands up from his knees to his thighs, lightly scraping her fingernails over his flesh, which made him moan even more, and far more loudly – her name spilling from his lips with an intensity that made her wet with want.

She curled her hand loosely around his cock, watching his face intently, then she lowered her head and sucked him into her mouth. His hips jerked, and she knew it was an involuntary reaction, but it still gave her a thrill – it always gave her a thrill when he let her take charge. She'd never been with anyone who was as willing to let her have control when they had sex as Phil always seemed to be.

After she'd finished sucking him off, and helped him to straighten out his clothes, she turned back to the two laptops. 

"Hey," Phil called, and she looked back at him. "Aren't you going to let me return the favour."

She smirked at him. "Well, I would, Phil, but you're never content to get me off just once when you eat me out, and I want to do some more work today."

He pouted, making her chuckle. "What about if you set a time limit?" he asked, which made her raise her eyebrows – she thought he must really want to eat her out to make such a suggestion.

"Fifteen minutes, then," she told him, and let him draw her from her chair and across the room to the large couch in the living area. He unfastened her jeans, then encouraged her to lie back on the couch, guiding her jeans down her legs and following the path of her pants with kisses to her thighs, the backs of her knees, and down to her ankles. Once her jeans were off, he kissed his way back up her legs until he reached her sex, which was already so wet that she might have been embarrassed with anyone other than Phil. He drew his tongue up the length of her folds, then parted her lips to delve inside, and Daisy moaned loudly, grabbing the couch arm behind her head to keep herself from grabbing his head.

His tongue worked busily, driving her to a climax three times before his fifteen minutes were up, and when he'd finished she was sated and sleepy. He smirked at her, then stripped off his jeans and boxers again, revealing to her that he was hard once more. She opened her arms to him, gladly accepting the weight of his body on hers as he positioned himself over her body, before sliding his cock into her throbbing pussy and fucking her like this was their last time together.

They took it in turns to shower afterwards, then Daisy went back to work while Phil went out for some groceries in order to make them dinner. She set the encryption program on her laptop to work on decrypting the SHIELD files that Talbot had, and while that was running she went back to Phil's laptop, digging more into Lieutenant Jones, and others on Talbot's staff roster.

She was reading through more of the decrypted SHIELD files when Phil returned and the moment he was through the door, she called him over. 

"I've found proof," she told him.

"Proof of what?" he asked, looking puzzled.

"That we worked for SHIELD."

"What?" He set the bags of groceries on the other end of the table, then hurried to her side. "Show me."

She did, taking him through two documents that laid out just what had been done to them both: something called the TAHITI Protocol had been used to erase their memories, giving them both fake memories of the last few years to cover up the fact that they'd worked for SHIELD.

"I was the Director?" Phil looked shocked when she showed him that information.

"Yeah. And I was a field agent – as well as being an Inhuman who was nicknamed Quake after I 'went rogue'," she said the last two words in a voice dripping with disdain.

"What happened?" he asked, and she brought up the second document – a detailed report on an alien parasitic entity called Hive that had been brought back to Earth via an ancient stone portal. It went into details about Hive's possession of corpses, its mind control powers, and the fact that Daisy had been under its 'Sway', as that mental control was known. Then the report documented how Daisy had left SHIELD and chosen to work solo to try to protect Inhumans in the wake of the Sokovia Accords.

"My god!" Phil looked as pole-axed as Daisy had felt when she first read the reports. "This is an incredible cover-up," he said.

"And we're going to confront him over it," she told him.

"What about your powers?" he asked.

"Ah, yes – Talbot thought that I could be cured." She told him all about a Dr Andrew Garner, the late ex-husband of SHIELD agent Melinda May, and how he'd accidentally gone through Terrigenesis, turning into an Inhuman named 'Lash', who had been responsible for saving Daisy from Hive's mental control before dying at the hands of another Inhuman. She explained that one of SHIELD's scientists, a Dr Simmons, had been trying to create a 'cure' for Inhuman transformations, and Dr Garner had been given it, but it hadn't worked on him. 

"Apparently, she continued to work on it after the Hive situation was dealt with, but it didn't work on Inhumans who'd already transformed, so Talbot got her to create a drug that could suppress an Inhuman's powers – but only if they continued to take the drug for the rest of their life."

He frowned at her. "You haven't – " he began, and Daisy shook her head. 

"No, but since I'd had my memories altered and wasn't aware I had powers, I had no reason to think of using them. And I had them well under control before my memories were altered, so they believed the chances of me using them accidentally were minimal."

"Now though?"

She moved the half-empty mug of coffee from beside her to a spot in front of him. "Watch," she told him, and pointed her index at the mug. After a moment the coffee began to ripple inside the mug.

"Wow, Daisy!" He lifted his eyes from the mug to her face, staring at her intensely. "You're Quake."

"Yeah, apparently I'm Quake."

"That's amazing. You're amazing."

"I don't feel amazing right now," she told him. "Mostly I feel pissed off and violated."

He dropped his gaze, but not before she caught a glimpse of remorse in his eyes. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

"Don't be," she said. "It _is_ amazing to think that I've got superpowers, but I can't think about that too much at the moment." She took a deep breath as Phil slid his hand into hers and gently squeezed her fingers. "We need to decide how and when and where we're going to go after Talbot. And I think Lieutenant Jones can help us."

As Phil made dinner preparations, Daisy continued to refine her plan, and once they were ready to eat, she had got it fine-tuned. She took Phil over it in detail as they ate, and he listened intently, asking a couple of questions for clarification, but not arguing with her.

"When do you want to do this?" he asked once she'd finished outlining it.

"I think we should approach Lieutenant Jones tomorrow," she said, "and we'll go from there."

He nodded. "I feel like I should apologise," he said.

She gave him a startled look. "Why?"

He shrugged. "I was instrumental in you getting your powers. If it hadn't been for me – "

"Phil, don't." She cut him off without hesitation. "You may have been the one who completed the 'map' that allowed SHIELD to find the underground city in San Juan, but the HYDRA people were looking too. There's a good chance I'd have ended up there anyway, especially since my father wanted me there so much."

He reached across the corner of the table to touch her wrist. "How does it feel, knowing that your father also went through the TAHITI Protocol?"

"Weird," she said. "But at least he was given the choice – _we_ did it the right way with him. Talbot didn't."

He nodded, then got to his feet and fetched the tub of Ben & Jerry's he'd bought earlier, together with a couple of spoons. "Let's go sit on the couch and eat ice cream," he suggested, and she chuckled weakly.

"Yeah, okay." When she got to her feet, he set down the tub and pulled her into his arms.

"You know that whatever happens, I'll stick by you, don't you?" he asked softly. "And that I love you very much."

"I do know," she said. "And I'm very grateful for your support, and very glad that we met up again."

"Me too," he said emphatically. He kissed her, and Daisy allowed herself to lean into him a bit, before pulling back to say, "The ice cream's gonna melt."

That made him chuckle, and they made their way to the couch. Daisy switched on the TV and they sat watching something fairly mindless while eating a bit more ice cream than was strictly sensible, but she had the feeling they were both feeling a bit reckless tonight.

DJ-PC-DJ-PC-DJ

When Lieutenant Jones returned home from her shift the next afternoon she entered her apartment to find two people sitting on her couch. She stopped dead inside the door, then very deliberately turned her back on them and closed, then locked the door. Phil exchanged a surprised look with Daisy, and she mouthed "She trusts us" at him. He nodded, and couldn't help feeling impressed with the young driver.

"You know who we are, don't you Lieutenant?" Daisy asked in a quiet voice.

Clara Jones nodded, and crossed the room to sit in the armchair opposite the couch. "I can't say I'm surprised to see you," she told them.

"You're not?" Phil asked; he was a bit surprised by how calm she seemed.

"I always thought Talbot's idea was a bad one," she said. "Not just unethical, but risky – especially once they established that Dr Simmons' 'cure' wasn't going to take away Quake's powers." She looked from Phil to Daisy. "How long have you known you're former SHIELD agents?"

"I confirmed it yesterday," Daisy told her. "But we'd both been having dreams about being SHIELD agents – without knowing that it was SHIELD, specifically, that we were working for, for a few weeks."

Clara nodded again. "When did the two of you meet?"

Phil gave her a sharp look. "You knew Daisy wasn't in the States?"

She scowled. "Talbot was very specific that the two of you should be separated by as many miles as possible. Since Daisy's half-Chinese, he was convinced she'd easily settle over there."

"I came to New York for a conference last month," Daisy told her, "and happened to walk into the bar where Phil was having a drink. We hit it off instantly."

"I always figured you two were destined to be together."

"What do you mean?" Phil asked.

"After Quake – " she paused, and Daisy said, "Went rogue?", and Clara grimaced, then nodded. "Yeah. After that, you did everything you could to track Daisy down, Mr Coulson – Talbot was quite scathing about it, talked about it quite a lot, actually. I kinda got the impression he was jealous somehow."

"Huh," Phil said, not sure what to make of that.

"He talked a lot about star-crossed lovers," Clara added.

Daisy frowned. "Were we lovers before then?"

Clara shrugged. "I don't know. I don't think so, but Talbot seemed to think of you in that way. He said something once about 'where one goes, the other follows'. And – " She looked away, her bottom lip caught between her teeth.

"And what?" Phil asked gently. 

"That's how he managed to capture Daisy. He kidnapped you, sir, and Daisy came to rescue you, and he flooded the room where you were being held with Dendrotoxin gas, which knocked both of you out. He got his science team to put some gloves on Daisy that suppressed her powers so she couldn't just break you both out of there once she woke up."

Phil looked over at Daisy, who was looking positively furious. "We want to confront him," he told Clara, and she nodded. 

"I figured you would once I saw you were here. How can I help?"

Phil watched the young driver as Daisy outlined her plan, and where Clara fitted into it. It was clear, watching her face, that Clara empathised with them both, and that made him feel better. The plan wasn't without its risks since they were proposing to capture a high-ranking US Air Force official, but he felt fairly confident they'd be able to pull it off. It had become very clear to him the day before, when she took him through the plan, that Daisy must have been a brilliant field agent. He had wondered if she'd want to go back to being a SHIELD agent, before he remembered that SHIELD didn't really exist any more since Talbot had had it absorbed into the ATCU. He somehow couldn't imagine Daisy would want to work for the ATCU, not after learning what that organisation had done under the leadership of Rosalind Price. It had occurred to him afterwards that Daisy might prefer to set up her own organisation to help her people – and if she did, he intended to help her.

They arranged to be back at Clara's apartment the following morning before she was due to leave to collect Talbot and drive him to a meeting in DC, then they headed back to Phil's apartment.

"Do you want some coffee?" Phil asked as he let them in.

Daisy shook her head. "I think I'd like an early night, to tell you the truth. I feel drained by the day's revelations."

He wrapped his arms around her and pressed a kiss to her brow. "How about a bath and a massage?" he asked. "I promise there'll be no funny stuff if you just want to sleep."

"'No funny stuff'?" she repeated, then snorted. "Why so coy, Phil? Why not just say that you promise there'll be no sex?"

He felt the tips of his ears burning and saw that Daisy had noticed. "I – uh – " he stuttered, and she chuckled.

"You're a dork, Phil." She slipped her arms around his neck and kissed him, sliding her tongue easily into his mouth, and he moaned when she stroked the roof of his mouth with her tongue.

He could feel his arousal building, and was acutely aware that his cock was thickening and lengthening inside his pants. "I think we should fuck, first," she told him, cupping his dick through the denim of his jeans. "Then a bath, then you can give me that massage."

"I like your thinking," he told her, and she chuckled again.

"Of course you do, Phil."

He scooped her up into his arms, startling a squeak of surprise out of her, and carried her into the bedroom, where he proceeded to undress her, then himself, before making love to her as tenderly as he knew how. She was boneless with satiation afterwards, so he carried her into the bathroom and ran the tub for her, then left her to soak while he went to fill the dishwasher and set that going. He peeked into the bathroom some ten minutes later and saw Daisy was lying back with a folded towel under her neck.

"I'm not asleep," she told him without opening her eyes, and he was too startled to speak for a moment, so she opened her eyes and looked up at him, her expression curious.

"How did you know I was here?" he asked once he'd recovered enough to speak. 

"I sensed your vibrations."

"You sensed – " He broke off, staring at her in awe. "Daisy, that's amazing."

She shrugged one shoulder. "It's going to take some getting used to," she said in a quiet voice.

He crossed to the bath and knelt down beside it. "Can I help?" 

She shook her head. "Not really, not this time. But thank you for asking." She sat up, and reached for the wash cloth.

"I can help with that, though," he said, and smirked at her when she rolled her eyes in mock annoyance.

"I'm tempted to drag you in with me," she told him, and he chuckled.

He took the washcloth from her, and proceeded to wash her back, then her arms and chest. She lifted her legs up one after the other, and he did them as well, then her feet. She let out the water, and he held up a towel, which she wrapped herself in, before she followed him into the bedroom. 

Once she'd dried herself off she stretched out on her stomach, and Phil proceeded to massage her neck and shoulders, then her back, and the backs of her legs. He was careful and thorough, and by the time he'd finished she was boneless again, so he stripped off his own clothes, then climbed into the bed beside her. She shifted so she could put her head on his shoulder and he wrapped his right arm around her, getting them both comfortable.

DJ-PC-DJ-PC-DJ

Daisy had planned their ambush of Talbot very carefully, and when Clara Jones stopped to get him coffee en route to his meeting, she and Phil slipped into his car, Phil into the driver's seat and Daisy in the backseat.

"What – " he began, spluttering, then fell silent when Daisy pulled off the wig and hat she'd put on that morning.

"You!" he said outraged.

"Yes, me. Us, in fact," she told him, gesturing to Phil, who turned around after ditching his own wig and aviators. "We need to talk, Glen."

She saw him flinch at the menace in her voice, and felt no small amount of satisfaction at his reaction. Phil already had the car in motion, pulling into the traffic smoothly and heading for the abandoned industrial area that Daisy had pinpointed as the best spot to take Talbot.

"Don't make any sudden moves, Talbot, and then I won't have to hurt you." She slipped her hand into his jacket pocket and pulled out his cell, which she turned off and pocketed.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded, all bluster now that he'd got over his initial shock at their sudden appearance.

"Like I said, we need to talk. Phil's going to take us somewhere quiet, where we won't be disturbed, and we'll have ourselves a nice chat about how you violated our rights."

"You don't understand – " he began angrily.

"No, _you_ don't understand, Talbot," Daisy said in menacing tones. "I am not interested in your excuses. Now, are you going to keep quiet until we get where we're going, or do I have to make you stay quiet?"

He subsided, glaring furiously at her, and she nodded.

Ten minutes later Phil stopped the car in the empty parking lot of and Daisy gestured at Talbot. "Out."

He glared again, then climbed out, and she followed him as Phil also exited the car. 

"What you did to Phil and to me – capturing us, drugging us, putting us through the very dangerous TAHITI protocol without our knowledge or consent – violated our human rights, and – "

"Human rights," Talbot repeated, scoffing. "You're not human, either one of you." He pointed at Daisy. "You're a dangerously super-powered Inhuman freak, and him – " He pointed at Phil. "You're basically a zombie, from what I can figure out – you should be dead."

"And you're a bigoted prick with a nasty attitude," Daisy told him, feeling her anger rise, even though she knew she should keep her cool. "But I still wouldn't capture or drug you, or put you through a radical medical procedure without your knowledge or consent."

"You were running around, totally out of control," he yelled. "Causing all sorts of destruction and damage to property with earthquakes."

"Out of control, huh?" Daisy asked, folding her arms across her chest. "You know, Talbot, I did a search of the news archives – and while you're right that when I was operating as Quake I caused quite a bit of property damage, no one got hurt. I even captured some criminals for the cops on several occasions. I also saved lives on a number of occasions – but of course, the lives I saved were Inhuman ones, so I guess that doesn't count, does it?"

"But you damaged banks and – " he began, still yelling, still furiously angry.

Daisy unfolded her arms and held out her hands towards him, and his yells cut off instantly. He looked terrified, she thought, which was precisely what she wanted, but it didn't make her feel good.

"Yeah, Talbot, I damaged property, but that still doesn't excuse what you did to me, or to Phil. You especially don't have an excuse for what you did to Phil."

"He wasn't much better than you," Talbot said, speaking more quietly now. "Running after you all the time like a love-sick fool. It was pathetic."

"Oh, so now it's acceptable to punish someone for caring about the person they love most in the world, is it? Wow, you really do have some shitty ideas, Talbot." She folded her arms again. "You're going to pay for what you did to me and to Phil," she told him.

He took a step backwards, fear in his eyes, and Daisy scoffed.

"I'm not going to hurt you – tempting though it is to get some of my own back."

"What do you want then?" he demanded, and she could see he was confused because he'd expected violence.

"You're going to resign as head of the ATCU," she told him. "Phil and I will be taking over – although it will no longer be concerned with containing 'aliens' – we'll be helping Inhumans, and any other Gifteds that need help."

"You can't do that! I – " he began, his face growing red and his moustache bristling.

"I can and will," Daisy told him sternly. "And if you don't agree, we'll be going to the press about this." She tilted her head to one side, watching him, and saw the moment he realised that she was dead serious in making such a threat. "Yeah, Talbot – with the Sokovia Accords so recently dismantled, and the rising international outrage at the treatment of such iconic figures as Captain America, you can be sure the press would have a field day."

"Your career would be in ruins," Phil added from his spot a few feet to the left of Daisy. "You'd lose your pension and all your benefits, not to mention everyone's respect. This way, if you quietly bow out, you get to keep all that – which is more than you deserve after what you did to us."

"So what's it to be, Glen? A quiet retirement, or going down in a fireball? Your choice."

"Fine," he said through gritted teeth. "I'll quit."

"Good." Daisy nodded at the car. "Get in."

"What?" he demanded angrily.

"Well you still need to get to DC, don't you? So you can tender your resignation in person."

"We're going with you," Phil told him.

"All the way to the top," Daisy said cheerfully.

Muttering vile imprecations, he climbed back into the car, and Daisy and Phil got into the front seats.

"You two are sickening," Talbot said as Phil waited to join the traffic on the highway. "Think you're so Romeo and Juliet."

Daisy laughed. "Actually, we're more Antony and Cleopatra."

"Although if you push us too far, we might turn Macbeth," Phil added, smirking at the outraged splutters this provoked.

"Freaks!" Talbot groused.

"Hey, you should be grateful for freaks like us," Daisy told him. "We're the ones who keep you safe from the freaks who aren't decent people like us."

She exchanged a grin with Phil, who reached over and grabbed her hand, squeezing it tightly, and she squeezed back.

This wasn't over, of course – she was sure that the President would be a lot harder to persuade, but she was also certain she could make him see reason, one way or another. And then she and Phil could start to do some good in the world again.


End file.
